Gone Girl by former EW staffer Gillian Flynn might be the surprise runaway hit of 2012 — and it’s still killing it on the best-seller chart deep into 2013 — but it’s not her first rodeo. If you loved Gone Girl, you might want to check out her first two novels Sharp Objects and Dark Places, the film version of which will reportedly star Charlize Theron. Flynn’s previous books are certainly different from Gone Girl, but they carry some hallmarks that might seem familiar by now: heroines who are deeply screwed up but always engaging; bleak, low-skied Midwestern settings; smothering parental types; and, of course, sneaky, viperish twists.

Broadway Paperbacks is releasing new covers for Sharp Objects and Dark Places in early April, and they hew closer to the Gone Girl motif. Take an exclusive peek below!

SHARP OBJECTS

Flynn’s first novel debuted in September 2006, and it’s still on the New York Times Trade Paperback Best-seller list for the 8th week running. Anyone who’s read Sharp Objects already knows what that blade means to Camille Parker, who might be Flynn’s most dysfunctional heroine ever. No, scratch that. Call it a three-way tie.

DARK PLACES

A best-seller for the 33rd week, 2009’s Dark Places follows Libby Day, who witnessed her family being murdered as a child. Twenty-five years later, she runs into a group of morbid crime obsessives called the Kill Club who try to re-create the crime. New truths emerge, and Libby finds herself on the run again.